Thursday, 17 September 2015

I found this whilst researching for an upcoming article. I wanted to share it with you as I was thinking of how little has changed since it was published in 1996 ; or has it? My belief is that the situation now is worsening and with that out understanding of paedophilia hasn't improved at all...

Anne Bannister is a cheery middle-aged lady from Manchester who has spent the past 20 years meeting child abusers. For the past nine, she has run a consultancy compiling profiles of paedophiles for the NSPCC; before that, she sat with offenders for thousands of uncomfortable hours as a psychotherapist and a social worker.

She knows precisely how they operate: "I could take a paedophile into a school playground and say, 'Show me the vulnerable children.' In two minutes he would have picked them out: 'This child is lonely, that child is a bit isolated, that one is not going to scream and shout and run home to Mum...' "

This is how we think of paedophiles: male, predatory, snatching victims at random. Last week the Old Bailey heard allegations of just such a case. In October 1994 Daniel Handley, a nine-year-old boy from Beckton, east London, was out playing on his BMX bicycle when Brett Tyler and Timothy Morss allegedly pulled up in their car, bundled him in, and drove him across the capital to a flat above the office where they worked.

There, the court heard, they took turns assaulting him, filmed the act, and drove off down the M4, where Handley was strangled in a lay-by and his body buried in a wood near Bristol. On Thursday the evidence was such that jurors wept.

Yet, for all the familiar horrors of stories like this, so guiltily compelling to newspapers and their readers, we are far less clear about their context. As a result, responses to tales of child abuse swing wildly between paranoia when the practice is uncovered, as it has been recently in the children's homes of Clwyd, and denial that it exists at all whenever an investigation collapses, like the infamous inquiry into satanic activity in the Orkneys in 1991.

Slowly, however, an approximate science of child abuse is being developed. Anne Bannister has been one contributor to it; Art O'Connor, a forensic psychiatrist at the Central Mental Hospital in Dublin, is another. Their developing conclusions, as Dr O'Connor explains, do not tally at all with the picture of paedophilia suggested by, say, the news pages of the tabloid newspapers: "What's reported is the dramatic abuse, the murders, and everyone assumes that's the norm. But cases like those are very rare."

In trying to discover what "the norm" for abusers is - by examining their numbers, methods and motivations - Dr O'Connor and his fellow psychiatrists first face a problem of definition.

By law, any adult having sex with someone under 16 is committing paedophilia. But it is clear that many teenage sex lives, whether involving peers or older partners, start a year or two earlier - without automatically being considered paedophiliac. In practice, therefore, psychiatrists now believe that the common characteristic of victims of paedophilia is that they have not yet reached puberty, rather than simply that they are under 16.

Yet uncertainty about the act of abuse itself still reigns: "Child abuse spans a whole spectrum, from inappropriate touching to penetration," says John Rea Price, director of the National Children's Bureau. In addition, victims are often sexually ignorant and, whether through fear or shame, reluctant to describe their experiences. Thus the incidence of paedophilia has proved difficult to catalogue and quantify.

Last year the NSPCC tried, interviewing 1,032 people between the ages of 18 and 45 about their sexual histories as children. One in six of them recalled "sexual interference", one in nine actual physical contact (the rest remembered incidents of indecent exposure). Currently, the charity's helplines receive around 15,000 calls a year reporting suspected child abuse.

The number of tormenters of children remains equally vague. The National Criminal Intelligence Service inherited a card index of convicted and suspected paedophiles from the Metropolitan Police when it was set up in 1992; with information from other forces added, the service now has a database of between 3,000 and 4,000 names. But this includes publishers of paedophiliac pornography, too - the 1978 Children Act made it an offence "to take or permit to be taken, distribute, or show, or possess with a mind to distribute any indecent photograph of a child under the age of 16" - and they may in turn have hundreds of customers.

It is in dividing these tentative figures into types of paedophile that psychiatrists are making headway. Dr O'Connor identifies three categories. The first is the "incest offender", typically a father who abuses his daughter while maintaining an outwardly "normal" relationship with his wife. In about half of these cases alcohol plays a part, although less so as the pattern of abuse is established. The second type Dr O'Connor calls the "standard paedophile", an abuser whose entire sexual history has involved assaulting children. The third is the "young offender", often a teenager abusing a younger sibling.

All three categories of abuser are usually male, although the proportion of women is rising. Beyond this, their collective profile differs sharply - indeed is the opposite - of its popular conception. "There's a lot of suggestion that it's homosexual men who attack boys," says Anne Bannister, "but the vast majority are heterosexual, and the gender of the child is immaterial."

Far from being dark strangers, most paedophiles know their victims, and vice versa: assaults usually come from within supposedly protective institutions such as the family.

When they occur, they are carefully planned: "Paedophiles rarely pick off children at random," says Ms Bannister. "That's the paedophile's excuse: 'I don't know what came over me.' " Instead, abusers identify likely victims and draw them closer by "grooming" - offering gifts, favours, and friendly company over what may be weeks or even months. Sometimes the treats they offer are illicit, like cigarettes or invitations to play truant, giving the paedophile an ability to blackmail their victim into keeping quiet in the future.

A similar malign ingenuity frequently marks paedophiles' efforts to gain access to children in the first place. Ms Bannister has encountered abusers befriending mothers and fathers of desired children, and even marrying single parents: "When I see those advertisements for dates with 'children wanted', my heart sinks."

Paedophiles also favour infiltrating public institutions. Schools, children's homes and even in one case, as Mr Rea Price recalls, the National Children's Bureau, have all been used as cover for obtaining victims. Once ensconced, abusers may form networks, exchanging information about "available" children - "They can be meticulous in the details they keep," says Mr Rea Price - and, if investigated, providing each other with alibis.

These networks can be horrifyingly complex. In one, discovered by a Liverpool psychologist, children who ran away from homes were lured to London by a "safe" name and address, forced into a paedophile ring, then, as they grew older and more knowing, were co-opted into silence by being made to abuse the most recently arrived victims.

The abusing careers of individual paedophiles can have a grisly professionalism, too. A few may assault hundreds, even thousands of children during a lifetime.

"Most child abusers are emotionally as well as sexually drawn to children," says Ms Bannister. "They convince themselves they're doing no harm ... that the child led them on."

Last month, this newspaper received a letter from a "frustrated paedophile", complaining that coverage of police operations against child pornography ignored the "fact" that "the 'stars' are only too eager to take part in whatever is required of them

Such sentiments usually seep from a variety of psychological wounds. Many abusers have been abused themselves, often repeatedly (although most victims, of course, do not become paedophiles). Paedophiles can lack the sexual confidence to approach other adults, or simply find a mature sexuality repulsive and an immature one attractive. Or, as Anne Bannister explains, "Anger comes into it; people want to punish their existing partner or they've been rejected by their existing partner."

There is also a category known as fixated paedophiles, men who abuse only boys of a certain age, and this is usually the result of some experience they themselves suffered at that age.

Like the whole subject of paedophilia, the motivation of abusers is still only dimly understood. The reasons for being a paedophile may be almost as numerous as the paedophiles.

Given the strength of their desires, and the sheer numbers of available victims, measures to prevent paedophiliac activity are not advanced with confidence. Imprisonment is not favoured, as it often creates new rings of abusers, passing child pornography around behind bars.

The National Institute for Social Work has been lobbying the Government to create a central register and code of conduct for professional carers, so that their backgrounds can be more thoroughly checked. The Government is moving towards the more populist solution of a national paedophile register, along the lines of the existing police database, including compulsory tracking of addresses. But this has problematic civil liberties implications: should suspects as well as those convicted be watched? And if so, how could the system guard against smears, blackmail and the victimisation of innocent people?

There is more support among those examining paedophilia for educating children earlier about the threat. "You can teach them not to get into strangers' cars, to say, 'No. This is my body,' " says Mike Berry, a clinical psychologist who works with abusers. In Ireland, a successful "Stay Safe" campaign has been run in schools for five years, with teachers passing on warnings and advice to pupils about how to avoid abusers.

But it is hard to be too optimistic. In Britain the emerging academic consensus about paedophiliac behaviour has yet to achieve popular credence. Indeed, there are still signs that we prefer to fear the largely mythical random pervert than confront the real enemy closer to home. In 1993, for instance, an American professor called James Kincaid was hounded across British newspaper columns for suggesting in a book on Victorian literature that child abuse sprang from the same culture of "child-loving" as more acceptable forms of affection.

Yet Anne Bannister agrees with him. "Inside us all there is an abuser, a bit of a bully. A vast amount of us never let that surface, and like to think that the abuser is totally different, an absolute weirdo ... He isn't."

Tuesday, 15 September 2015

This is probably the most important page on this 15,000 page website. It lists many unsolved cold cases where children have either disappeared without trace or have been murdered where the killer has not been convicted of the crime. For the parents and family of the children, their grief is extreme and prolonged, and their only thoughts are to gain answers or info. Can you help ? Please click the Facebook share at the bottom of this page.

There are more than 1,000 unsolved murders in the UK, some going back several generations. But what happens when the trail goes cold on a murder or a missing child ? Detectives never completely close the files of unsolved homicides or missing children. They simply keep hoping that one day they will be given fresh information that may lead to finding the killer or that child. Here is over 25 cold cases of children – I have given a brief description of each case on this page but if you click the name of each, it will expand the full profile of that child.

Monday, 14 September 2015

Another word for child pornography, “child sexual abuse imagery” is the term that those working to put an end to this horrific crime have begun using instead of child pornography. Child sexual abuse imagery is a more widely encompassing term, and refers to content that depicts sexually explicit activities involving a child. Child sexual abuse images and videos are most often documented with the purpose of being shared widely for others to watch, and in so doing, victimising the child many times over.Last month this was reported in the news.

Whilst many on the internet may not be hands on offenders they are encouraging the production and spread of this imagery and statistics show that this is often a stepping stone to being a hands on child abuser.

There are many websites catering for those with tastes in "twinks" or "teens" and whilst many may indeed be over the age of consent in their country, the majority do not look it. It seems to be more about a certain look, a body type, rather than the age itself. I have a friend who's older partner made him shave his body hair (he was young twenties at the time) so that he looked younger. This, I believe, would technically make the older partner a wannabe pederast. The use of the word paedophile is also technically misleading. The word comes from Greek and literally means "one who loves children." Please see HERE for a further explanation.The Copine Scale which was used to determine the category of offence in child sexual imagery was changed on the 31st December 2013. Please see this link for more information.

I have reported many Twitter and Facebook accounts over the past few years for having either obvious child abuse images or at best dubious ones . In most cases nothing was done. I know many friends of mine have also done so with the same response.Perhaps, as was said to me this morning, prison isn't the answer for those who never go on to actually abuse directly. I do believe that anyone who is caught with child sexual imagery should be publicly named and shamed, forced to have long term therapy and also be on the sex offenders register.

I am sure many will have much to say on this subject and would welcome comments and opinions.Whilst I applaud the efforts that should be made as a result of the news story above, I fear that it will only be a drop in a very big ocean.

Going through the family photo albums is one of the more awkward events of a new relationship. By comparison, the first night of passion is a breeze.
It is especially awkward for victims of childhood trauma as you get to see the before and after pictures. You see the damage carved into expressions and posture. You see what was lost. So normally I prefer to leave the albums closed. But now I was ready to face the triggers, indeed eager to find missing jigsaw pieces.

Wednesday, 9 September 2015

The Wounded Warrior expresses the pain and self-doubts that many survivors carry inside, hidden from the world most of the time. Voicing the pain of surviving through writing whether it is a blog like Beyond Survivor - The Wounded Warrior Blog or like here at Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker is important because giving voice to our pain frees other survivors to do the same.Continue reading here/

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

There are not many people from social media that I have kept
a fairly regular contact with. A few have become good friends and others occasional
acquaintances. There are hardly any that I have met in person...

One of those poor unfortunates is Mr James Austen. Regular
readers might recall he wrote a guest post for me in April 2014. Innocence Lost, Grail Found. I am a great fan of his writings in all their forms. James has had more than his fair share of "attacks" over these writings, unfairly so in my opinion.

For any victim of abuse to stick their head up above the parapet takes courage. To openly admit to having mental health issues as a result of such abuse and being prepared to write about it takes more than courage. It takes strength and a tenacity of spirit. James is a rare sort. He has a sharp wit, is kind and considerate, humble and often self effacing.

Combining child abuse with gay adult "fiction" may seem bizarre to many. I admire James greatly. He is honest, humble, blunt at times, but does not slap you in the face with his writing. He brings the horrific reality of childhood sexual abuse and it's aftermath to the attention of the world through a genre many might think inappropriate. It works though, and very well too.

Childhood sexual abuse impacts upon all cultures, all nations, all aspects of society. No group of people is free from it, no matter how hard some seem to want to deny it's existence.

I have come to know him personally, in the "real world" if you like. We have often discussed our pasts and their impact on life during and post childhood. I knew about his diagnosis of PTSD and Bipolar disorder but I often thought it went deeper than that. Most will know I am very open about being dissociative. D.I.D or Dissociative Identity Disorder frequently impacts victims of early childhood trauma. It is a coping mechanism. It happens to keep the "inner child" safe from the stark reality of what is being done to them.

I saw in James various changes of mood and demeanor that spoke volumes to me. His voice changed, his eyes changed. I could have been looking at two brothers and not the same man at times. There were other hints such as significant gaps in memory and his own skill at self observation brought more clues to the fore. I broached the subject with him and he agreed to write a further blog post for me.

Personally I am very proud of him. He has broached an area that he has not really discussed or maybe even given much import too before. I know he is very wary of exposing this part of his life publicly. I stand beside him, as I hope you will, and am there to support him. Please join me in welcoming James back to the Wounder Warrior blog.

Life could be a dream or have I dissociated?

My earliest memory is of being sexually assaulted. My next memory is being told off for saying such wicked things. The abuse stopped and for the next seven years, until I was 10, I had a relatively normal childhood as if nothing bad had ever happened.

Fast forward to April 2015 when I found myself walking by a canal not knowing where I was, who I was, or why I was there. I was hot and tired and walking manically. I was consumed by panic. Whoever I was, I had clearly lost the plot.

I found my phone and after fumbling for a while, started the map app. I discovered I was about 2 miles away from Wembley. Then it all started falling back in place. I recollected that I was on a house sitting contract and had set out for walk. I could not recall any other details of the walk or how I had lost my memory. It felt like I had somehow lost the defining sphere of memories that normally surrounds me, but then felt it reboot and slowly come back online encircling me in invisible data and telling me who I was.

Holes in my memory are not entirely new phenomena. I had previously managed to forget almost all of the sexual abuse that had started as a 10 year old. I had always remembered how it begun, but as soon as the scary stuff started, I was elsewhere, certainly not there. Even now I only retain nightmare like glimpses and those memories do not feel like they are really mine, it was as if they happened to someone else and I was only watching. Indeed this caused me to doubt everything and if it were not for other associated memories, events, illnesses and corroboration from other victims, I would be sympathetic for the case for the defence – none of it happened, it was all imagined.

I was so in the dark about my experiences that I got all the timings and dates wrong when I first went to the police. Only recently have I discovered that the abuse went on longer than I had thought, continuing on into my next school. It was a photo that triggered this. I had been in a dance group run by the abuser even after I left his school. In the photo I was wearing the tee shirt of the dance group. Once I recollected this other memories surfaced, one from an after performance party. I remembered anxiously denying to concerned adults that anything bad had ever happened with the teacher. That memory, especially, was bad news to me, it seems we could have had it all fixed there and then.

I can’t describe this as amnesia. It was as if the memories were discreetly stored in an isolated compartmentalized part of the self, but independent, autonomous and not under the umbrella of I. If the self is a kaleidoscope of archetypes, this would be my sexual persona, who I am during sex. But to me, if not to my lovers, a complete unknown.

Sexual abuse continued throughout my teen years, but to all intents and purposes, it was this other me who experienced it. “I” still considered myself a virgin, told people as much and when I went on first dates fumbled ineptly, like someone entirely unaware of what his penis was for. This ineptitude for sex became part of my personal mythology and I have restated it through the years, believing it to be true. The part of me that was good at sex, the me who was playful and dexterous, mastering tantric techniques and multiple orgasms was someone else. Someone I switched into – occasionally – during sexual activity, conveniently forgetting about afterwards. I only realised this recently and it was quite a revelation, like I did not know myself at all.

As with many people, this disassociated part of the self is too some extent tied up with guilt. Born from shocks.

I was shocked by my behavior while I was still a young child, shocked that I went back for more, shocked that I was jealous of the attention the abuser gave to other victims and shocked just a few years later that I found myself, contrary to how I should feel, enjoying sex. (Anyone who sees this as a rational for lowering the age of consent is an idiot.)

But psychologically something else was happening too. I remember at fourteen being unable to decide if ordinary events like visiting people or doing homework had happened, or had been imagined. I remember having a mini existential crisis and wondering if what we called reality was a subjective fantasy, like a dream.

My identity, my concept of who I am, was built on a fault line. A tiny crack was left by those early experiences and it got wider and deeper with every subsequent violation. I can now see that this fault line runs through everything.

There are different degrees of dissociation. Creative writing is a form of dissociation; when writing I hear the story and rarely consciously craft it. All the best ideas seem to come from outside me, often as a huge surprise. But something similar happens with other behaviors. As my mood changes I may be unaware that I have ceased communicating and angrily ask,, “What’s your problem?” As if innocent of blame.

Then also I have throughout my life forgotten some fairly major occurrences and people, some of whom I have been told were my friends. As my memory is normally fairly sharp, I have had trouble believing this and have assured them that it is their memories that are at fault. However recent events have since made me wonder.

I believe some degree of dissociation is normal to everyone. I have described in other blogs how different roles we play in life require different personas. Just think of the morning after the night before for an inkling of this. But it is where there are complete breaks, walls over which memories can not cross that we have problems.

Having seen the film Sybill, I initially rejected that my form of PTSD was anything like that. But I have since seen that I was indeed displaying those same symptoms to a lesser degree. I was semiconscious that two poles needed aligning and integrating, this was the grand scheme behind my series of novels, the Quantum Twins. Unlike Sybill, I knew I was creating subpersonas with unique histories and identities. Although my perception of the caged inner child underwent some metamorphosis during the process, it was sort of on target. But the sexual aspect was entirely unexpected. Which is kind of weird as I am sure it would be kind of obvious to anyone who knows me.

This part of my story will I believe have a happy ending. The walls came down. I am still here. The disconnected behavior and patterns of thinking are still there, but now are parts of me. (Aren’t they my precious…?)